Among the surviving documents relating to the history of Magherafelt Workhouse include the ‘Indoor Registers for the years 1842- 18??. The year 1847 of the Indoor Registers has been transcribed and published by Al Bodkin and the Ballinascreen Historical Society and have proved to be a hugely important guide for local people trying to assess the extent of the Famine locally. At first glance the registers look mundane and with little value except for potential genealogical use. With more than 5,600 names mentioned in them, the potential for people to trace their ancestors who used the workhouse overtime is possible.
However, the registers are of huge importance in trying to ascertain who used the workhouse system, how and why. Each of those who entered the workhouse had their own personal circumstances for doing so, but some shared unique traits.
Widows
One of the largest groups of people who entered the workhouse both during and after the Famine was undoubtedly widows.
Mary Mooney aged forty-six, a mill worker from Coalisland was in the workhouse in 1863 probably because she was a widow and then described as ‘destitute’. Of course, she was not the only person described as a ‘widow’ within the register which prompts questions about how society viewed and looked after such people in the past.
In many instances the whereabouts of husbands is also given which means they were not widows in the sense that their spouse was dead, but instead absent. Entries in the registers refer to men in Scotland, England and America. Those that went on ‘seasonal’ work to Scotland and England were happy to leave their families in the workhouse. Mary McCotter, aged twenty-four, was one such person, who with her two children (one just six weeks old) entered the house while her husband was abroad. The psychological impact of this on the family unit must have been great, but in the Magherafelt area as with the rest of the country, this was the norm for the 19th century.
Sadly, there was a significant rise during and after the Famine of women being abandoned in the workhouse, as were children. They included those like Jane Farrell, a thirty-one year from the townland of Tullykeeran, near Maghera whose stay lasted over a year. Farrell’s record notes that her ‘husband is in America’. The presumption is that the passage to America finally arrived, but the workhouse records do not indicate for certain that this was the case. Ellen Ryan spent the winter months in the workhouse as her husband was in America over three years, before returning to beg with her eight year old child in the summer. Of course, not all of these stories might have been true and certainly from time-to-time workhouse officials did not believe the circumstances of ‘inmates’.
Some were less fortunate and had to enter the workhouse with large families under the knowledge that they would be broken up and that no ticket of passage from America or elsewhere would arrive. Take for example, Margaret Pickering who entered with five children aged between 13 and 2 after she was ‘deserted by her husband’.
Orphans
What is particularly apparent is how the workhouse functioned and provided safe haven for orphans. Eliza Cuskelly of Castledawson, aged 13 had little other recourse than to enter Magherafelt workhouse after she was left ‘orphaned’. Her stay was short, entering in late April 1863 and leaving less than three months later. It was a similar scenario for the Quinn’s of Maghera- Maria (30), Alex (12) and Joseph (5) who availed of the workhouse. With their parents dead, the Lindsay children of Ballimacrossan (?)Ballinascreen?? aged eight and nine were forced to use the workhouse for short stays. What they did in between is not recorded in the workhouse records. Frequently, orphans were adopted from the workhouse, but the records do not reveal who their new families were. Other orphans were supported by subscriptions including the one year old Nancy McKenna of Maghera. Young children were also left in the workhouse when parents had been sentenced to prison. It must have been daunting for little Mary Hamilton, aged six, who was placed in this position and sent to the girls ward as her mother spent time in jail.
Elderly
It is also obvious from the Indoor Registers that elderly people entered the workhouse largely as a last resort as most had no family to care or look after them. While the early 1850s records highlight that there were few elderly men in residence, as the century wore on this quickly changed and with the ‘hospital’ facilities and assistance in the workhouse so good, many choose to spend their final days there.
